Heaven & Earth
by sadbear
Summary: He fears succumbing to temptations of power. She actively seeks it. Their contradictions will eventually bring them closer together, but at what price? Events written to take place just before USFIV, and may extend until shortly after SFV.
1. Prologue

The sky was a somber mix of grays with few patches of thin clouds. The tall grass on the vast field swayed by the moderately strong wind. The torrential rain that felt like a huge stream of waterfall had simmered into gentle sprays. Some of them flowed on the gloved hands of a man in white gi, torn at the sleeves. It made his hands less bloody, but it could not wash them all away. Instead, it only revealed the old scars from his past, and fresh wounds from the tragedy happening right in front of his eyes.

He was looking down at the woman, who was lying on her back on the grass wearing a purple breastplate that has several, very obvious dents. The breastplates used to be held on her body by a few cloth strings tied to form a spider on her back, but two of them were torn off. Bruises could be seen on the skin near the edge of breastplate's dent. Her open white taekwondo baggy pants were ripped off on the bottom of the left side and has several slashed openings on the right. The tight purple leggings underneath those pants were also torn in many places, revealing several wounds with blood still seeping out of them. Her left eye, that was glowing bright pink the whole time they were there was then already reduced to a mechanical device damaged beyond repair.

Tears pooled in her right eye, but the pain from the severe physical injuries was not the main reason. She was looking back into the man's eyes. He already knew what she could be wishing for, and the sincerity and the earnest intentions from that wish, but does not want to grant it. Doing so would be going against everything he has been fighting for, and that he will not be able to live the rest of his life with the fact that he consciously killed someone he cared about.

"You've done... so much for me, Ryu." Her tears began to fall down. "...but there's one thing left... I want you to do for me."

Not very far away from them, a woman in blue China dress and tight red leggings looked on to them. Wounded herself with all kinds of internal injuries, she tries to stand again, fighting all the pain she is feeling. Her long hair that was tied into two buns unraveled by itself and it falls as it was swayed along with the wind. Being a policewoman her entire adult life, she could already smell the bad omen radiating from the situation between the two.

"Please... kill me..."

The man did not respond by his words. He only clenched his two fists tightly.

"I beg you, Ryu... Please..."

"NO!" His teeth locked tight in frustration. "There's got to be another way around this!"

"But I could have killed Sakura..." She moved her right hand towards his left feet, shakily as the bone inside her forearm was broken. Then she gripped it tight, reflecting her resolved. "I killed a lot of people, but... I don't want to anymore. I..."

He quickly knelt down and took her then frail body into his arms. "What's done is done. It's fine that you want to stop now, but your death won't bring anyone back to life! You'll only be running away!"

"This... Feng Shui Engine... will turn me against you... Against everyone..." She cries harder. Blood began to seep out of her left eye socket. "If I can turn back time and resist Seth's offer, I would,... but I cant...!"

The female police officer stepped in closer to the two. Holding her wounded abdomen, she desperately tried to stop whatever it was that she thought was going to happen. Several times, she fell to the grassy ground from the excruciating pain caused by her broken legs, but if past battle wounds were any indication, she has suffered worse and could still stay true to her sense of justice and doing what was right. She pressed on with every bit of energy she could muster.

However, her worries became true. Still 90 meters away, she could see the man gently putting the woman back down. As he stood up and took a deep breath, she began to see small sparks of electricity growing from both of his arms. Her heart beat faster when she saw him opening his legs and pulling his hands together backwards.

"RYU, DON'T DO IT!"

She could not tell if he can hear her, but he seemed determined to go on with it. The ball lightning that began to form in the space between his arms produced bright flashes of light that illuminated the entire field, which increases in intensity as it grew larger and the small sparks getting bigger and more frequent.

The man then finally moves his hands towards the woman on the ground. What followed was an intensely bright light that blinded the police officer, followed by a scream that she understood all too well.

"SHINKUUUUU... HADOUKEN!"


	2. 1 - Storm After The Calm

"Wha?"

Ken's voice broke its pitch. Donned in untucked white shirt and dark red slacks to go with matching blazer, he looked at the man in white gi beside him. The trail of smoke from the incense burning in front of them flew by their noses but they stood still for some time.

"...Normally I'd be relieved but..." Ken combed his shoulder-length hair back with his fingers. "Ryu, what do you mean when you said 'quit'?"

"Exactly what it means. I want to quit fighting."

Ryu stared on the giant steel idols that represented the gods of which they learnt about since they were children. Ken did the same. As Ryu's mind wandered back to the time when they were still with old master Gouken, Ken's mind was running wild with theories. He began to question Ryu's motives, and if this revelation has a unique meaning being that they are right in their old temple where they used to be taught the principals of Ansatsuken martial art and fighting in general.

"You remember that time Master told us about the origin of Ansatsuken?" Ryu began to spoke, watching the palm of his right hand. "Before he cut straight to his peaceful ideals, I became pumped up when hearing its bloody history; how Ansatsuken practicioners used their fists to kill people."

"We're all kids back then. We tend to get excited about shit like that. Don't worry about it!"

Ken's smile was wide, but he immediately changed back to sour when looking at Ryu's face.

"Look, man... if this is about the Murderous Hadou, we already talked about this..."

"I honestly believed back then that it will all change; that, if I kept pushing myself and train, I can finally stop worrying about Murderous Hadou."

"Ryu..."

"Been five years since then. One after another, some terrible thing happened and a lot of innocent people got caught in it. That kid Shun, all the things that happened in the last tournament, SIN... and Sakura almost got killed twice because of me. Despite that, I still haven't made any real progress on controlling Murderous Hadou. You think I can keep the bad guys away from controlling my dark side if I can't control it myself?"

More awkward silence took place. The sound of the leaves on the trees brushing against each other as the wind blows lightly through the autumn sky masked an unseen tension between the two men. Ken could not believe that he could not feel at ease while he had to back his friend up in so many dangerous situation in the past. Moreover, he was then married and is expecting a child, and he is finding himself running thin in being Ryu's direct ally. For all intents and purposes, this could mean the end of the hectic fighters's life and they can both spend the rest of their lives more normally like other people.

Yet, he took another glance at Ryu's sad expression, and he could not help feeling that it will all be for naught.

"...Ahh... fuck it.."

"What did you say...?"

"Nah, just talking to myself." Ken tried to dismiss his expression of anxiety. "By the way, you sound completely American now. If you wanna settle down, I have a great job for you back at the States."

"Thank you for your compliment. I'm only good at it because I have a very good friend who gave me a good headstart." Ken laughs haughtily in satisfaction, but Ryu still would end up disappointing him. "...but I'm not moving to United States."

"Why not?"

"No matter where I go, I always returned here. There is where I was raised, where my best memories lie, and where I should stay."

"Wanna be a monk?"

"I just might. Old man Gunma is old."

They both laugh at Ryu's reference to the existing monk of their temple, old man Gunma. Ken could see from his face that this might be his strongest quitting resolve yet. At that moment, he had a small thought that his embattled friend might just find peace in settling down and avoid traveling the world to fight like he used to. Of course, he could already hear Chun-li's scream of surprise once he tells her of this development, and he was already anticipating the doubt and unsettling uncertainty - the same feelings he was having then. Even as Ken walk away from a smiling Ryu, with a backdrop of a lush and ancient scenery of an old Japanese temple with the thick forest mountains behind it that would normally tell anyone 'it's going to be alright', he just could not stop thinking about the relationship between Ryu, Akuma and the uncontrollably destructive power they both wield; the former seemed most reluctant to the power however.

Back at his car at the main road just outside the forest zone, Ken sat still inside. Several dry leaves flew through the open window, past his face and into the car, but as the picture of Eliza swung inside the necklace he tied on the rearview mirror, his thoughts began to drift further into his wife, the child she was bearing, and how his decision will affect not himself and Ryu, but the woman he loved the most and how their future will turn out to be.

Inside the temple - the same place he just talked to Ken in - Ryu looked on to the steel deities. Bright orange light from the setting sun which went through one of the open windows shone on the deity in the middle, where Master Gouken used to stand and watch them meditate in order to summon their ki for the first time. Flashbacks of how cocky Ken was for being able to form a ball lightning before him, how he was able to form a more powerful one later and caused them both to quarrel rushed through his mind. Those were the times when he felt he was at the top of the world; he was finally able to perform a feat only few humans in this world can do.

Once again, Ryu held his right hand up, just above his waist. He pressed his fingers very slowly inwards , and small bits of electrical arc formed at the center of his palm. The arc rattled wildly until it forms a ball lightning, surrounded by thin streams of plasma. He held the form for a while, thinking back to his childhood days when he and Ken used to be so proud of being able to create such extremely hot, almost magical phenomenon at will and use it as a weapon. Together with his eyes shut, he clenched his right hand into a fist, eliminating the ball lightning which seemed to dissipate into smoke coming out from between his fingers.

"Yurushitekudasai, Shishou..."

Loud sound of birds rushing away into the air as if in panic caused Ryu to reopen his eyes. Instantaneously, he felt aura radiating from a distance, within the temple compounds. That aura was nothing like he ever sensed his entire life, and it puts him into unease. The last time he felt that way was when he confronted the demented international criminal M. Bison, who generated his energy through artificial means. There was no way Ryu could confirm if this aura he was feeling then was also from an artificial source, and he could not care. All he thought about at that moment was only to located the source of that aura because whatever it was, it felt very hostile.

Ryu ran from outside the temple into the open space to find old man Gunma lying on the stone floor. Seeing as he was unconscious, Ryu decided to run towards him, but a crescent beam of bright pink energy blew up right on the ground space between him and Gunma.

"Found you...!"

Ryu turns his attention southeast towards the thick trees where he though he heard the female voice. Then, he heard a brief but strong sound of cloth blown by the wind, from behind him and held his hand into shape to block whatever was coming to him.

It was a kick, flying from midair which was locked on to his neck, coming from a provocatively dressed woman. Her dark pink breastplate was too small to cover the sides of her breasts. She wore a rich pink leggings inside an oddly cut taekwondo baggy pants which produced the sound Ryu alerted himself to block from. The woman managed to throw a very brief smile at him before she jumped back with the same right leg she used to attack him and landed with a force strong enough to blow all the dust around her.

Ryu felt a bit sore on his left forearm. He realized that such attack would have crippled him if he had not block the flying kick.

"When I read the reports about you, I imagine I would be facing some kind of a hairy mythical beast. Boy, was I pleasantly proven wrong, mhmhmhm..." The woman slowly got up with her back towards him until she finally turned around. Ryu could see that her left eye looked weird; it was glowing a bright pink, which reminded him of the color of M. Bison's ki.

"Who the hell are you...? And why did you attack that old man...?" Ryu wanted to go to Gunma and immediately help him anyway he can, but he had a feeling that he would only put both of them in danger if he tried; the woman seemed very willing to kill Gunma just to lure him out.

"'Spider' is what they call me, but you can call me 'Juri'."

"I don't know what you want from me and I-"

"A FIGHT!" Juri had cut his words before he could finish. "I'd be lying if I said there isn't more, but this is what matters now."

"Don't think for a second that I'd let you have everything your way. I am NOT going to fight you."

She showed a grin. Ryu became distracted with her response until she vanished from his view. Then he turned to his side to see Juri kicking the unconscious Gunma in his stomach. It was strong enough to send him sliding 6 feet away.

"STOP IT!" Ryu became nervous. Putting Gunma's life before his problems, he declared. "If it's a fight you want, so be it...!"

Juri licked her lips, delighted by Ryu's predictable decision. Her left eye grew brighter as she opened her arms and taunt him with her smile. "Yes... you will let me have everything my way... Ahahahahaha... KYAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"


	3. 2 - Their First Fight

Before Ryu could see what exactly was coming for him, Juri's heel hit his cheek clean. It was so fast that by the time he could hear the distortion in the air, his face was already 90 degrees to his left from the force.

"KYAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!"

He turned to look ahead once again only to see nothing, and again he was kicked. The two strikes to his back almost shattered his spine, and it sent him flying three feet away before he fell to the ground.

"You're weak." Three hits and Ryu was yet to see her face. Only her voice echoed in his ears. "TOO WEAK!"

He was trying to stand up again when he felt someone rushing towards him. Intuitively, he jumped off the ground with his right leg spinning. It was a successful counterattack; his feet managed to hit her face. When he landed, he swiftly took the opportunity from Juri's distracted state. Just as she was going to look back at his face in anger, a hook punch landed on her abdomen and an uppercut under her chin, and Ryu spun 180 degrees into a powerful reverse thrust kick, again at her abdomen. Juri got sent back five feet and crouched down holding her stomach.

"You're finally serious, I take it...?" She smiled at Ryu, who was then in stance and fully prepared for a full-blown fight. "THEN LET'S TAKE IT TO YOUR DEATH!"

Ryu moved towards her first. He threw a pair of left-right jabs towards her face which she evaded with a flick of her head. She was going to counter him with a left backhand and a reverse spinning high kick, but he ducked away and kicked Juri's standing leg to knock her down. She rolled herself back soon after the fall and proceeded to dash towards him with a non-contact high kick that produced a single beam of energy. Ryu managed to block it and was preparing for an energy attack of his own when his face got hit by another one of Juri's high-speed flying sudden and strong kick made him lose enough awareness for her to land two rapid side kicks to his abdomen and lower jaw before she hopped backwards away from him.

He lost balance and almost fell to the ground. When he finally snapped back and hold his body still, he began to sense a rapid disturbance in the ki around him. It was then that he could see Juri, a few dozen feet away from him, with her left eye glowing into a bright purple. It was obvious to him by then that her strange ki was artificial, and it might have something to do with that left eye of hers.

"You disappoint me, Ryu. For all that hype, I thought you were much more." Juri's grin ghastly complemented her widely opened right eye. "I'll take you down and bring you back to being a loser that you really are!"

In a split second, Juri went from complete stationary to almost the speed of sound. As she was only a few feet from Ryu, she began to turn her body, intending to destroy his internal organs with one spinning thrust kick right on the center of his stomach. For Ryu, it was a mistake; Having predicted her tendencies correctly this time, he quickly stepped aside and escaped the right thrust kick by less than half an inch from his skin. He then grabbed her right leg and threw her up backwards. With Juri flailing on air, screaming as she lost control of herself, Ryu raised his left fist to hit her stomach with the combined force of gravity. It was fierce enough that saliva coughed out of her mouth, and she floated back up briefly before Ryu's right fist came into contact with her lower jaw.

"Metsu...!" Ryu exerted all of his strength into that one right uppercut before jumping up and accumulated more force with his legs into a jumping uppercut. "SHOURYUUKEN!"

As he landed back to the ground, he could not hear anything further from Juri. There were neither screams nor sighs; only a deep thudding sound of a body crashing back to Earth. When he looked at her, he could only see a passed out woman, with some blood dripping out of her mouth.

He stood still there for a while, with all the questions he could not ask himself during the fight now whirling inside his mind. It was not until Ken emerged from the bushes running, that he finally came back to his senses.

"RYU!" He was no longer wearing his red blazer. A dry leaf stuck on his long blonde hair. "What the fuck just happened here! I sensed some alien ki and then I thought I felt the Dark Hadou coming out!"

"Dark Hadou...?"

"Aww man...! And why Gunma is lying on the ground! Who is this woman?"

"...She had beaten Gunma, and she fought me..."

Ken stepped in closer to him and the unconscious Juri. "What did this bitch do?"

"Ken, just..." Ryu could not bother to even look at Ken's face. "Just get Gunma to the hospital immediately. He won't last much longer if you don't help him."

"But what about you? Not to mention this woman coming out of nowhere?"

"I'll take care of her. You just take Gunma away."

"You don't think I'm gonna leave you alone after I sensed Dark Hadou, do you?"

"Please, Ken..." Ryu understood Ken's concern. The Dark Hadou was probably leaked off his ki when he was so desperate to bring Juri down with the strongest form of Shouryuuken he knew, and the dangers he experienced with that power in the past meant that he was increasingly at risk. However, Gunma's safety is more important to him at that moment, and there were many things he would like to clarify with the seemingly demented woman, even if he had some gut feeling that what she would say would not make much sense.

Meanwhile, frustration towards Ryu began to well up inside Ken. He realized that whatever just happened could not be entirely his fault, but he was annoyed at Ryu's treatment towards him and the whole situation. Never the less, he tolerated it.

"Fine.. I'll take Gunma to hospital in town, but I will come back for answers, pal."

"Answers are the things I intend to look for, from this woman."

Ken carried Gunma in piggyback and ran out of the temple into the forest. Ryu, still standing at the same spot, only stared at the woman, quietly breathing on the ground. He started to feel as if the weird ki the woman possessed was influencing the Dark Hadou inside him, and he may put himself in danger just by staying close to her. His humanity overridden those worries and he carried her body into one of the buildings.


	4. 3 - Ken's Wrath

"Chikara koso tsubete da!"

Akuma's words rang in Ryu's head as he sat in front of Juri who was lying in front of him. The moonlight shone through the open door and bathed around her face. It was not very bright, but the otherwise dark training hall where they were in provided enough contrast for him to examine her face in its every detail that night. Despite her closed eyes, Ryu could notice their movements; most likely the woman was in a dream. Her stressed forehead skin was an indication for him that the dream was anything but pleasant. Sometimes he can hear very short moans and at times, her breathing would elevate and cold sweat would fall from her cheeks.

Looking at her like that, Ryu had some pity for her. The erratic behavior he had seen just a few hours ago, he knew could not have been shaped into that woman overnight. It was not visible then, but he noticed several faint scars on her body. Having traveled the world over and fought countless opponents, he could tell that the woman was a genuine fighter, and the scars reflected that, but there was certain sadness and regret he could see from beyond her menacing smiles.

When Juri opened her eyes, the first thing she did was throwing a side kick towards his face, but Ryu's lone-honed reflexes made him block it. Immediately she flipped back afterwards to make a distance between herself and him. The sudden sharp pain on her stomach made her collapse on her knees before she could stand back up straight.

"YOU...!"

"Three of your ribs are broken, and your jaw probably cracked." Ryu was still sitting on the wooden floor, although there was a certain degree of anxiety in him by then. "You're hurt, but I wanted to ask some things from you."

"I DON'T ANSWER TO ANYONE AND I SURE AS HELL DON'T ANSWER TO YOU!" She dashed 10 feet towards the exit. "I WILL GET BACK ON YOU VERY SOON!"

As she was going to perform another dash, a bright blue ball lightning went inside the building from the exit and was very close to hitting Juri's head. She managed to make herself fall to the floor to avoid it and rolled a few steps to cushion the inertia.

"My only weakness is that I dread beating girls." Ryu heard hard-soled footsteps from the same direction as those words. When he saw a silhouette of the man standing right at the doorframe, he could tell it was Ken. "But with the whole feminism movement demanding all that equality mumbo-jumbo, I figure I should deliver."

"Ken, you shouldn't..."

"You should shut up for a while Ryu." Already without his blazer, Ken rolled his shirt's sleeves up past his elbows. "Old man Gunma is in a coma right now, and I am pissed as all hell."

Ryu stayed put, although he wished he could do something about this before it would get worse. He knew Ken all too well; For a man who's relatively more level-headed than most men he knew, he can be difficult to stop once he is engulfed in anger. Perhaps, the fire element that Ken could wield through his moves, which was outside the Ansatsuken's orthodox methods, represented him well. Of course, with her injuries, Ryu was a bit worried at how Juri would handle this one, but he began to have some contempt for her after hearing about Gunma's condition; he felt that it was totally uncalled for and dishonorable. He understood however that not everyone carries the concept of 'honor' the same way he did.

"WHO ARE YOU!" Juri screamed. Her voice stuttered.

"Ken Masters. Here just to kick your ass."

Juri groaned with gritted teeth. She threw an attack first by launching two energy beams with her kicks towards Ken. He retaliated with a ball lightning that consumed both of those energy beams, and dashed to a foot's distance from Juri when it disappeared. Juri was stunned by Ken's speed after that attack that another of Ken's ball lightning move hit her stomach at point blank. It sent Juri flying back 15 feet until her body slammed against the wall.

"UAAAAGGGHHHH!" She screamed from the unimaginable pain. Her body rebounded from the wall and she fell face down. She was not yet knock out, but too hurt to do anything else. Blood began to leak off her mouth and she moaned quietly, still reserving some of her ego.

Ryu was alarmed by Juri's state at that moment, and the way Ken was behaving. Flames began to swirl and spun rapidly around his two hands.

"That was for Chun-li, bitch."

"Wait, Ken! She's completely beaten up already! Any more of that and you'll kill her!" Ryu stood up. He took a brief glance at the woman curling in pain in between watching out for Ken's next move. "And what did you say about Chun-li!"

"She schooled Chun-li good two weeks ago." Ken's fists tightened as he explained. "She was put in coma for 2 days and nearly broke her spine. I wanted to know how did she get it, but she only scoffed me away, saying it's just part of her job and I shouldn't get involved."

"You never told me!"

"Because she asked me not to!" Flames on Ken's hands ignited and disappeared. In its place, lightning sparks began to swirl around his fingers. "You're nothing but an artifically buffed up poser, just like Bison, like Seth. I don't know what kind of power Bison lended to you, but I destroyed his Psycho Power bullshit before and I will do the same with you."

"God damn it, Ken!"

Ryu's disapproval was ignored by him. He continued to expand his stance and held his two hands back together, accumulating energy between his palms until it became a ball lightning with hot plasma circling around it. He drew his palms closer together, compressing the ball lightning further until lightning sparks rattled out of his fingers and arms. Seeing Ken, Ryu knew that he needed to do something; Ken's Hadouken was always slightly less efficient that his, but when he is really serious, nothing will stop him.

"SHAKUNETSU...!" Ken pushed the ball lightning forward with all his might. "HADOUKEN!"

It was so fast, it seemed to hit as soon as it went out. The explosion produced a bright flash that blinded Ken for a short second before he saw Ryu standing between him and the bleeding Juri, taking the hit from his attack and was kneeling on the floor. Skidmarks could be seen on the floor extending from Ryu's feet; He must have taken it at full-force and fully grounded, which meant that he absorbed all the energy and inertia from the ball lightning.

"You know... if you hit her with that,... her spine would snap like a rotten branch..."

Ken's eyes were opened wide with amazement. Ryu's weakened psyche simmered his anger down and replaced them with guilt.

"What the hell... you didn't have to do that...!"

Ryu looked over his shoulder towards Juri to see if he managed to stop it completely. Indeed, she was still lying on the floor fighting the pain, but there were no signs of her being hit. He took a deep breath and stood up, shakily.  
"I just want yo u to explain your purpose, Juri..."

"...Hmph...!" Juri detested Ryu's kindness. "You beat me up like this and you expect me to talk!"

"...For God's sake, Ryu..."

Ken shook his head, disappointed. Ryu did not pay attention to it. He simply went closer and hold his hands out to pick her up.

"DON'T TOUCH ME!"

"JUST STAY STILL AND LET ME TREAT YOU!" Juri's holler was at the top of her lungs, but Ryu's unexpected burst of frustration put her in a trance. Slowly, he began to lift her up, trying to make sure that he could hold her in a way that hurt her the least.

The night continued with Ryu tending to Juri's wounds to the best of his knowledge. Using ginger, ginseng and various other traditional medicines, he patched the improvised bandages where it mattered. Their effects were not immediate, but Juri laid on the bed grudgingly accepting the soothing effects it had on her wounds. By the time the last patch on her abdomen was placed, it was already three in the morning.

Before he left the sickroom with Ken, he wanted to hand over some medicines that need to be ingested to Juri, but she only looked away from him in disgust. Ryu simply reacted by placing them on the cupboard next to the bed with a glass of water.

After closing the door, Ryu inhaled deep and sat down against the wall. He untied the red headband around his head and let out a sigh. Ken, with his hands in his pockets, began to break the silence he kept since he watched Ryu treat Juri.

"So, when can I expect the interrogation to begin?" It was somewhat a sarcastic tone. Ken was very displeased with Ryu's unnecessarily nice treatment towards the woman, even after telling him what she did to Chun-li. "She's a criminal, you know. Not trying to be a straight arrow here, but when it's got something to do with Bison, I don't like taking chances."

"...She wasn't possessed."

"Huh...?" Ken raised an eyebrow upon Ryu's seemingly unrelated answer.

"I don't know how you felt when you saw me under Bison's control, but I know how it felt when I saw you back then. It's a bit different to her."

"So?" Ken almost laughed. "Then it makes our job easier since she's doing it out of her own free will!"

"For one, Bison doesn't like taking chances. I'm pretty sure Seth doesn't too. Letting their top lackeys loose by themselves is not their usual game." Ryu turned his head to his side, looking at the cracked wooden wall where Juri got thrown onto by Ken's attack. "And there's something else about her..."

"'Something else'?"

"I can't exactly tell what it is but... it's as if she's carrying the same weight as I do."

"What, you can read minds now?" Ken crouched and look straight into Ryu's eyes. To him, Ryu is just going into one of his poetic preaches again. "You're talking about a woman who has no qualms beating a defenseless elderly man into a coma, and that's not because she wants to keep him alive."

Ryu could not find the words to explain his intentions. Seeing Ryu's avoiding expression, Ken grew fed-up with him.

"Look, whatever group she's with, whether it's S.I.N. or God forbid, Shadowlaw, they will be coming after her once they realize that she hasn't returned. You wanna deal with that? I don't."

Ken walked away, leaving Ryu holding his head in confusion and anxiety.

"I can't watch your back all the time, man. I'm getting a son this year and I'd like to keep a low profile away from all this. If you're keeping her, then count me out."

The sound of Ken's footsteps faded gradually with his distance. It echoed with his friend's underlying message; that he will not be around for him forever, and they will go seperate ways eventually. He was well aware of that from the start, ever since Ken announced his wife's pregnancy to him. As the closest friend he ever had, it was also his desire to see through it that things work out for Ken. However, the constant conflicts he inevitably stumbled upon in the past few years, and the woman he was keeping at that moment, seem to haunt him no matter what he does; whether he quits fighting or not.

"Chikara koso tsubete da!"

Akuma's words resounded in his mind. He detested the notion that 'power is everything'. Yet, he felt so powerless that night and it was hitting him into a dead end.


	5. 4 - A Confusing Relationship

When the sun began to rise that day, the light from it went through the door frame. As time flew by, the light moved up from the floor and it slowly creeped up to Ryu's eyes. The intense beam woke him him, and he opened his mouth wide, covering it as he did.

He moved away from the wall he was leaning on and stood up. The red headband in his left hand was then once again firmly tied around his head. He was going to move about beginning his daily morning routine and forget about Juri if he did not notice the open door close to him, and the sight of the empty bed he last saw her on.

"...Ken ha, kitto okotterundarou..."

"What, he married you too?"

Ryu turned to look at the open doorframe, where Juri appeared from the other side. He was speechless for a while, seeing that Juri somewhat understood Japanese language and the fact that she has not run away, yet.

"A few herbs and patch and I feel almost as good as new." She catwalked in towards Ryu, in her usual deliberately seducing demeanor. "I guess poor men like you couldn't be able to afford hospital bills anyway eh?"

"You're welcome." It was a completely unrelated reply, delivered monotonously. Ryu was not exactly trying to be sarcastic, but the way Juri is putting him at an unease was making him too uncomfortable to contribute to the chit-chat. Besides, he was still longing for an answer. "Now, you owe me some explanation."

"Hmmmm?"

She raised an eyebrow. After a few seconds of silence, she began to walk back and forth with a finger on her lips, without acknowledging Ryu's request.

"In this boring, decrepit temple far from civilization, you chose to hole yourself in, hoping no one would notice you and your demonic desires. Yet, someday someone will come here and hound you to death to make you give in and you know very well that it would happen."

Ryu knew she was taunting him about the Dark Hadou, and his relationship with Akuma. He became so furious about it, it showed with his clenching fists.

"You're so drunk on power and you have no qualms beating a man who has no means of fighting back. You clearly haven't seen the worst things it can do to people, so help me God if you break and kill yourself later on."

Ryu walked towards the door without looking at Juri as he passed by her. To him, the woman was already crazy beyond help, and he completely lost any intention of getting answers from her since she did not seem like a coherent person anyway. Just before he was going to step out, he could hear Juri's giggling., but he did not stop until she spoke again.

"...I know all too well, what will happen to those without power." There was a hint of self-reflection in her tone, but then it quickly changed into contempt and lust. "That's why I seek it! So that I can stomp on everyone below me instead of being the one getting stomped! We call ourselves humans who are so civilized that we create our own laws to put constrains on ourselves yet deep down we're all animals who live by the rule of the jungle. Survival of the fittest. I kill because I don't want to be killed. I was born into this world and I have every right to live and to do anything to continue living."

"What a sad world you live in..." Ryu had some empathy in what she said, but he cannot completely justify them because he was taught and shown different principals in life that worked for him, at least until Dark Hadou started to ruin his life. "For a while, I thought I saw something worthy in you, but I was wrong; Instead of getting out of misery, you drag everyone else with you and blame them for everything that's wrong in the world."

"DON'T TALK LIKE YOU KNOW ME!"

Juri's holler chased away the pigeons on the rooftop. Neither one of them said anything until the sound of the pigeons' flapping wings faded away into the morning sky.

"You can implant all the machines in the world to give you more chi, but the bottom line won't ever change; you're weak, and you're not my worthy opponent. Go fight someone else."

"You don't know me You don't know me You don't know me You don't know me You don't know me You don't know me You don't know me You don't know me You don't know me You don't know me You don't know me You don't know me You don't know me YOU DON'T KNOW ME YOU DON'T KNOW ME ! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I WENT THROUGH AND YOU HAVE NO RIGHT! NO! RIGHT!"

Juri's voice was a voice of uncontrolled rage. That did not matter to Ryu, as he continued to walk out of the temple and back to his dorm, turning a deaf ear to the incomprehensible rambling Juri delivered at the top of her lungs. He had anticipated some physical retaliation, but his remarks seemed to have hit her too deep for her to respond like a sane person. When he closed the door to his room, Juri's already faint ramblings were already gone, mingling with the sound of the trees and their leaves brushing against each other. He slowly laid himself on the mattress adjusted the only pillow to cushion the back of his head comfortably. It did not even last more than half an hour after he was awake, but he felt strangely tired. In his mind, Juri's words began to sink into him.

"Ore, nan no tame ni tatakau no ka... Nan no tame ni tsuyoi yatsu wo ai ni iku no ka..."

He fell asleep with those thoughts in his mind. The hours passed and the bright sky turned darker with large dark clouds in the surrounding atmosphere. Rain fell, and the temperature dropped, making the usually hot afternoon a comfortably cold one. Not even hunger broke his slumber, until loud knocks on the door from outside awakened him. Turning around from the wall to the direction of the door, he scratched his head before he got up and open the door.

"Konnichiwa!"

It was Chun-li. Her red frilly dress was matched with a short pink jacket with long sleeves, but they were totally drenched, showing the outlines of her bra in the middle. The two white buns on her head that had become her signature hairstyle were loose, and the right side of her slippers broke its ribbon. She was keeping her hands behind him, but the yellow rattan box was too large to hide.

In the brief moment of surprise, he can still notice that her left foot were bandaged. Juri came back to his mind but at that moment, he no longer felt her presence.

"...Let's go to the main hall and get some towel first. You must be freezing."

They moved quickly along the roofed walkway towards the main hall where a cupboard stood, storing towels for guests. Ryu then gave her a set of kimono and a thick long robe stored in the same cupboard. After that, he went to the kitchen at the back of the same building, lighted up the fire and boiled the water in the large clay pot, intending to let Chun-li have a warm bath after soaking herself in the rain.

When he returned to Chun-li, she was sitting in the middle of the twin doors, already fitted with the clothes Ryu gave her. Her free, waist-long hair was unlike anything he had ever imagined; it made her look beautiful. In front of her, the rattan box was open and some food was laid next to it on top of ultramarine-sky blue checkers cloth.

"I was thinking... maybe I could have you show me around this place. Then rain fell down about 15 minutes into my journey that I came running!" She said with a smile.

The way her face looked so carefree gave him a slight discomfort; their previous encounters were always due to some terrible things that has happened, and about to happened. All the while, he always thought that she was a stoic young policewoman who constantly mean business. He did not think that her coming to find him that time was any different. Yet, he trusted that Ken could at least keep the whole thing off of her knowledge for a while more. The lack of space for himself started to annoy him, but he could not bring himself to express them to Chun-li.

"...You don't have to blame Ken, Ryu. I'm a cop, and he tried." Chun-li's words after seeing the way he looked at her confirmed his suspicions, but the solemn face she put up went right back to the unnaturally cheerful expression she had earlier. "Let's eat!"

"Chun-li, I..."

"Look, the pork chops are already too warm. Hurry up and eat it!"

Her smile no longer seemed forced. The way she looked at him made him crack a smile and he ate some of the food; regular-cooked rice with pork chops together with several pieces of carrots and broccoli. It was good, but the taste was too similar to the restaurant where he worked in for a while when he was in Hong Kong. Then Chun-li starting going on and on about the shortcut route she took to get to the temple, which should take 45 minutes on a walking pace compared to the official tourist detour route. It was the same route Ryu and Ken always used to get in and out of the temple, and Chun-li had known them since their second meeting, but that time was her first, walking by herself. She laughed off the fact that she could have seen a bear lurking within the forest zone, and how he might have fought one. Ryu smirked a few times from the conversation, but when the food's all gone, the depressing thoughts began to linger again.

Just then, Chun-li placed her index finger on his lips.

"Hey Ryu, three more days and my medical leave is gone. Let's not talk about anything work-related, shall we?"

"Medical leave?"

"Well, you saw these bandages. I suppose you know how, too." She stood up and went to the walkway, looking at the open space. With her face away from him, he could not tell what she was really thinking. "...But I just don't want to think of any of that, at least for the rest of the day."

Only the sound of trickling raindrops followed. Ryu understood that Chun-li was not exactly healthy, but there was a small hint of doubt in his heart about her sincerity. She was never closer to him than Ken, they only interacted during the Shadowlaw and S.I.N. crisis and she seldom talked very frankly with him except on that one encounter they had by chance in Tsim Sha Tsui that ended with a casual intimacy she seem to have erased from her mind immediately the day after. He wondered what was it exactly that she was trying to achieve by approaching him that way, and dread the fact that Chun-li went to him directly to patronize him.

Some of that thought was perished when Chun-li turned her head and smiled to him, but this time with tears leaking from her eyes. "I'm cold. I'm taking a hot bath, OK?"


	6. 5 - The Viper's Lure

The forest was almost a black space that night. The moon was completely invisible. A lot of stars were visible, and the horizon looked slightly brighter than the rest of the sky, but they would hardly help anyone being in that forest at that time. All one could only hear at that time would only be creaks and moans of wildlife, and maybe some sounds of the leaves brushing against themselves and the snapped old branches.

However, deep underneath this lush forest, a large facility was operating. Its ventilation exhausts were cleverly built to be concealed by the flora, and the noise from the rotating fans were very minimal. There were long concrete hallways painted in gray with fluorescent lights every 10 feet. Many of the doors leading to the rooms and halls were automatic self-detecting ones, which open by themselves only with a man's mere presence. On certain doors, armed uniformed personnel guarded the entrance, and several others were secured only with the combination of a card reader and keypads.

Young scientists in white lab coats, both men and women, can be seen strolling along the armed personnel in these places and in their laboratories. Certain halls would have long interconnecting glass tubes constructed on a large sturdy table, with indicators and electronic measuring equipment constantly blinking and setting off small beeps. Huge machines with multiple cavities which could fit a whole human being vibrated as they worked, giving off occasional smokes. Some of these machines also have spring tubes of all sizes connected to them, with many hastily assembled and tied to the walls and the floors. Sometimes one of those young scientists would receive physical abuse and emotional degradation from the guards and senior scientists looking over them. Despite their tired brains and barely-open eyes, they continue to push themselves to work throughout the night.

Deeper underground was a large open space, about 50 yards wide, filled with gym equipments on one side, and a wide, padded space with a row of 20 punching bags on the other side. 12 of them already bursted open, spilling their insides on the wall. The woman responsible for them was heaving hard as she was kneeling on the floor; her sweat was all over her body and several drops were still flowing on the face. Her white baggy pants had large blackish stain on the bottom, and her deep purple tank tops were drenched. Yet the rage inside her was not sated.

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGHHHH!"

Juri's left eye glowed, and she dashed forward into a thrusting right kick on a punch bag. She sidekicked the punch bag some more alternatingly and quickly with both her legs. Ryu's words echoed again and again in her mind, and it caused her to grit her teeth harder.

"YOU DON'T KNOW SHIIIIIIIIIIIITTTT!"

Spun herself in mid-air, and kicked the punch bag on her left heel. It left an arching pink trail of plasma as she hit the bag with anger, and the bag's synthetic leather case swelled and bursted open on the other side, throwing out its contents to the floor. Still floating, she put more pressure to the bag and completely split it into two.

When she landed back on the rubber padded floor, once again she was kneeling and breathing heavily. Her left eye no longer glowed. The pain from the injury she received from Ryu revisited her conscience, but the flames of disgust was too great for her to bear.

"Someone's ego is terribly crushed it seems."

She did not see the person who spoke that, but all she cared then was to smack whoever it was to Hell. She kicked the fallen half of the punching bag in the direction of that voice as hard as she could. Her target however managed to retaliate with a strong burst of invisible wind from his hand. The moving projectile was then sent spinning in another direction before hitting the large mirror on the other side of the wall, breaking it.

Juri paid more attention to that man; a bald, blue-skinned figure standing tall by the entrance. His two escorts adjusted their black shades and wiped the sand and debris from the punching bag that had hit them. The expression on his face clearly showed that he was not very pleased with the seemingly uncalled for attack.

"Not only you failed to gather any real significant data from that fight, you also got wounded and incurred more costs for your recovery, with money which we could have used on the project itself. Now, you attacked me." He brushed off some debris off his black vest on top of his white shirt, and his slacks. "You've always been a loose cannon, but I didn't exactly let you into this project so you can do everything as you please."

"Hmph..." Juri turned her back against him. She clenched her fists, holding back the anger towards Ryu and annoyance towards her boss, Seth. "This eye still breaks down at the most crucial moments. Why don't you do something about that first?"

"You take me for a fool? Logs are not kept just to fill up the files. They stopped functioning right after you fell unconscious!"

She could not bear to remember the humiliating moment she was hit by Ryu's Metsu Shouryuuken. Her jaw was no longer as painful as it was just 24 hours ago, but physical discomfort was nothing compared to her broken pride from being knocked down unconscious.

"The tournament is two weeks away. That might seem like a lot of time for you to screw around, but the technology is still too new for you to just pull the throttle and duke it out like you own the world. I remember telling you to have constraints and I would like to remind you of this for the last time."

Juri could see the dissatisfaction in Seth as he left her alone again, but she remained defiant in her silence. To her, Seth should be thankful for having a willing test subject for a project that could have killed her. Her cooperation was only part of a bigger plan, but she knew that she could not get far without risking her life where she should. That was why everything should be perfectly falling into place, so she could reach her objective. However the plan was hitting a bump with Ryu coming into picture. The fight she had with him was supposed to gain data valuable to the research for stabilizing the Feng Shui Engine embedding into her left eye socket, but she miscalculated his strength.

The Engine itself mattered little at that moment to Juri. The way Ryu downplayed her and judged her annoyed her to no end. Once again, she leapt towards the remaining punching bags and performed a flying spin kick with all her strength. The one which received direct hit exploded, while the other two hung closely to it got pushed by the strong aura that the pins holding them on the ceiling gave away and they got thrown 10 meters apart.

"Ryu... I'll make you pay dearly for this...!"

"Pay with what? You know he doesn't have much money, don't you?"

A woman in black suit stood at the door frame. Her red hair was tied into a long thread that went past her knees. Leaning, she removed the transparent yellow glasses off her face and swung it back and forth while Juri continued to look at her.

"Ha. Ha. Ha." It was a sarcastic laugh by Juri. "Why don't you go fuck off somewhere else, Crimson Viper?"

"Did you know that Chun-li contacted Ryu just after you left?"

"...What about it then?"

"Imagine..." Viper stopped swinging her glasses. The edge of the frame leaned on her glossy lower lip. "A woman still recovering, getting herself kicked yet again on her ribs, damaging her internal organs and spitting out blood right in front of him as she breathed her last..."

"SO WHAT!"

"You know that Ryu can't stand INNOCENT people being hurt in front of him, right? Oh what a demon he'll become. You want that demon to show up, didn't you?"

Juri knew about Viper's failed mission to capture Ryu's data in his Dark Hadou state. Seeing as Viper has found out about her own failure, it was obvious to her that the woman want her cooperation to provoke him once again and gather the important data, so as to please Seth again. Viper would be fulfilling her promise, and she would gain some more favor from Seth. For a while, it seemed like a great deal to her, but something inside her was telling her not to. It was the same feeling she had a few seconds before she had beaten the old man in Ryu's temple.

It could have been kindness, or honor. It could be remnants from what little good she has left before everything was taken away from her. Realizing what it might have been , Juri immediately perished them from her heart. For her, the girl she was 10 years ago was no longer her. Her weak older self could not pull her off the miserable life she had to go through after that one fateful incident, and she has sworn not to let herself be played into humanity again. She did not believe she could survive that way.

"...I'll take them out one by one myself all in due time. Right now, I just don't want to see your face."

Juri stood still, with her back facing the sneering Viper. Just when she was walking towards a remaining punch bag, the surveillance cameras inside the room made strange hissing noise before electric sparks came out of them, and when she looked at the ceiling, she noticed that all four of them had small flames coming out of them before they dissipate.

"Oh my, I guess some fuse got blown somewhere."

Viper laughed as she looked at the burnt cameras. Juri could see her turning a device around her left wrist; obviously she triggered it somehow. As Viper stood at the door frame right before she left, she looked at Juri with a meaningful glance and an unnerving smile.

"You have a lot more in common with your father than you think, Han Ju-ri. Just that your perception skills need some more work. You are this close to him, yet so far."

"WHAT!"

"He is not Seth."

The door automatically closed when Viper's figure disappeared from her view. She was going to chase her and dig some more, but more pressing questions lingered.

"Does she know of my plans...?"

"Does she know who ordered that fucking hit?"


	7. 6 - Juri's Very First Lead

Juri tapped her foot to the floor repeatedly as she sat cross-legged in the helicopter, which was flying over the cloudy skies over the Thai-Myanmar border. Directly opposite of her was Crimson Viper, who was nonchalantly tapping her fingers on the screen of a small device. Right next to each of them were three men fully equipped with helmets, gas masks, bulletproof vests and automatic weapons in each of their hands sitting in line extending to the loading ramp. Two of these men occasionally stole a few glances at the women, perhaps unable to ignore the tension surrouding the two.

"Mobilizing a chopper like this is rich..."

"What do you mean?" Viper responded, still with her eyes on the device.

"We're riding a God-damn Chinook MH-47D. You think I'm so ignorant as to take everything you bring in at face value?"

"If you know about it, you should know how good this chopper is and be grateful."

"You want to have a deal with me, yet you expect me to trust you?"

"I don't remember begging you for it." Viper's fingers stopped, and her eyes were looking straight into Juri's. "Instead, you look like you are the one so desperate. If Dear Leader Seth accepted this, you should too."

"Tch!"

She was going to scream foul of Viper, for the woman must have brought hints of her past with the obvious intention of luring her into whatever it was Viper was scheming. Her doubts are valid; the helicopter they were riding was a military-only model made for United States Army. Granted, the camo paint was changed but she remembered having to shoot down a similar kind with some mobile SAMs in the thick of Amazon forest to thwart a secret invasion plan of one of their secret labs.

Juri could not afford to let her tempers run loose at that time, however. After she recovered from her injuries enough for her to move around with minimal discomfort, she was immediately mobilized by Seth just an hour ago into a covert mission to destroy a rogue village somewhere within the Golden Triangle. Viper, who was appointed commander for the mission briefed that the village was one of Shadowlaw's main manufacturing hubs for heroin, and their population had begun causing disturbance in nearby areas, going as far as to murder and extort protection money from other villages close to the towns. It was previously blanketed by Shadowlaw's mind control schemes with all of its inhabitants removed of psychological contraints that determine regular human morality so that they would carry out any orders regardless of their brutal and violent nature. Since Shadowlaw went dormant, their minds have been slowly freed, but the inhibitions they used to have as normal human beings have not returned and were creating problems which could expose themselves and Shadowlaw to the world, which Seth found inconvenient for whatever it was he planned.

"Ma'am, we're now about a click away from target location."

The cargo space's speaker blared with the pilot's update. Viper turned off her device's display and kept them inside her pocket, before standing up, adjusting her glasses. She pulled her gloves back to make sure they are really tightly covering her hands and looked at the time displayed on her wristwatch.

"Alright, men. We have 7 minutes left so listen well because this is the last time I'll say it. I want everyone to be in their designated positions by two hundred hours. Eagle 5 and Eagle 6 are to come with me to the southwest and Juri will lead Eagle 9 and Eagle 10 to storm the eastern front. We are to take out every man and woman you see in this village but you must try to be covert. We don't want to be surrounded by the entire villagers in the worst times."

"Everyone?" Eagle 9 spoke. His voice was a bit muffled by the gas mask, but it was still loud enough for everyone to hear.

"Everyone. Remember that these people are very violent. They do not have reservations and are extremely dangerous, especially since many might be using automatic weapons. Kill them on sight before they get to you."

"...Should've just bombed the place clean and save the trouble." Juri shook her legs in dissatisfaction. Viper only smiled.

"So you were asleep during the briefing. I need to locate and retrieve some merchandise."

"Oh, so I have to expose myself to heavy fire and do the dirty work while you sneak in and take some stuff?"

"You like explosions anyway, so why complain?"

The loading hatch opens. The strong air current almost made Viper collapse, but she managed to get a grip on the handlebar. However, Juri simply walked calmly to the exit.

"I hate you and following your orders like a bitch." Juri looked back one more time. Strong winds were making ripples on her baggy jumpsuit which produced loud noise. "But I love explosions...!"

She smiled back at Viper, with her left eye shining a bright purple before dashing away and dropping herself out of the helicopter.

"What the..." Eagle 5 was still keeping himself belted to his seat. "We're still 140 feet high and she didn't take a parachute!"

Viper was anticipating that Juri would do something like this, but she was as much surprised as Eagle 5 to actually see her pull it off. She was not worried; Whatever crazy stunt Juri could be pulling, she will survive with the Feng-shui Engine buried in her left eye socket which was a gift from Seth.

"Well, change of plans. Eagle 9 and Eagle 10 are to take out whoever is trying to kill her outside her distance. Both of you are carrying SPRs anyway, right?"

Eagle 9 and Eagle 10 only looked at each other.

Meanwhile, Juri's body was spinning 3 times in the early morning sky before she landed her feet on the ground. The Feng-shui engine calculated the degree of bending her legs would need to help her absorb the force of the impact, and fortified her tendons by boosting her inner chi. As a result, Juri felt no different than falling from 15 feet. She took her time to lift her head high and take a deep breath of the otherwise refreshing jungle atmosphere. She opened her eyes when she noticed a faint smell of opium gum. That smell reminded her of the first few years out of the tragedy; losing her family and her home, and surviving on small-time drug dealing on the darker corners of Seoul's slums.

Those memories irritated her. She quickly ran towards the village entrance to the east. Her fortified sense of awareness enabled her to flip, climb and jump over any obstacles. Within 25 seconds from her fall, she was already standing out in the open, right in front of the huge bamboo gate of the village entrance. Two men, each at the wooden guard tower to the left and right of that gate could not believe their eyes when they snapped out of the sleepiness and saw a young woman standing in their plain sight without so much of a sound. Alarmed, they began to shout some words, which Juri only heard as gibberish to her ears. The shouts grew more and more hostile, and then she heard the sound of them pulling the bolts on their firearms, ready to shoot her at any moment.

"Oh... I'm getting wet...!"

Her next movement was so fast that the two men could not immediately track her. While they were thrown in confusion, they did not realize that Juri was standing right next to the tower on the right, outside of the other man's view. Lifting her right leg up, she charged the chi inside her for several seconds, which she then released into a fierce three jumping kicks burning with purple aura until that tower collapsed, taking down the man inside in and immediately killing him as he fell and got stabbed by crumbling sticks on his chest. When the whole tower has flattened, Juri could be seen standing on top and bending forward, signalling the other man with her fingers to come over to her.

Nervous, he began to fire his AK-47 frantically at her. Several of the bullets shot were heading right towards her head, but she could see them in motion as time slowed down around her. From the moment she turned her head out of the bullet's projection until she see them fly away, even being able to read the engravings on those bullets, her heart began to race. The rush of adrenalin from the danger, and the elevated blood circulation and heartbeats triggered by Feng-shui engine caused her to laugh from the excitement. The man eventually emptied the entire magazine of his weapon, but Juri only advanced towards him, slowly, creeping as if she was to be his impending death. Death it was for him; Juri had been cooking a grenade she took from the collapsed tower since the man started firing at her, and by the time it reached his face, he could no nothing else but watch as the sight of an exploding grenade would be his last.

Eagle 9 and Eagle 10 caught up to her by the time both towers have collapsed. They almost could not believe what they were seeing; a lone woman causing the destruction who jumped off 140 feet despite taking off with no weapons whatsoever. However, they were only getting increasingly nervous as the sound of it would alert villagers much earlier than they had planned or expected. When they noticed Juri standing in the middle of the gate, seemingly ready to take it down, they voiced out their concerns.

"Wait! There are probably already dozens gathering on the other side, aiming at us!"

"So?" Juri did not bother turning around to face them.

"We're only going to get killed!"

"Then piss off elsewhere!"

Eagle 9 and Eagle 10 looked at each other before taking cover in the bushes. What shocked them next is the sight of Juri exuding thick aura around her body. She took off her jumpsuit, revealing her usual spider breastplate and matching taekwondo pants. She only backed off a few steps before dashing against the large gate with one flying kick which shattered and snapped each of the tied up bamboos forming the gate. The center spot where she landed her foot snapped and form two sharp flying pieces which hit and immediately killed two of the mobs standing by while the rest of them fell into shock.

As soon as the gate collapsed and the debris cleared, Eagle 10 ignored his disbelief at the otherwise physically impossible feat and threw a grenade at a group of 7 men still standing in front of Juri, taking them out. Eagle 9 ran out of the bushes and began aiming through his scope and incapacitated dozens more. In the midst of the chaos, Juri noticed a man wearing a vest with blocks of C4s strapped on it, running towards Eagle 9 at full speed. Quickly after, she jumped and sped 50 yards into the suicide bomber, landing in front of him. She lifted him up with a knee attack under his jaw and delivered and reverse spinning kick that sent him flying to three groups of men guarding the front door to a two-storey wooden structure close by. The force was so strong that one of the men who was hit by the bomber also got thrown into the building. The structure then exploded and collapsed, killing the other two and three more gunmen who was firing at the rooftop.

Four men and five women armed with machetes and sickles tried to ambush her, but by then, her excitement has reached her peak. She continued to cackle hysterically as she easily evaded their deadly swings and gave them back fatal kicks to their necks and heads. They all then collapse on their last breaths in an almost perfect circle surrounding her.

"This is too easy... TOO EASY! KYAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH! !"

As Eagle 9 and Eagle 10 continued to take out other gunmen in the east section, trying to ignore Juri's lunatic burst of satisfaction, they were joined by Eagle 5 and Eagle 6 who themselves have been shooting at the other villagers. All four of them were then standing in front of a small shack which was the only remaining structure not yet searched by them as all the villagers around them have either died, or are dying.

"Boss secured the package, so let's just light it up."

Juri caught Eagle 9's talk through her own radio which she was going to ignore, but her heightened senses detected faint cries coming from the direction of the shack. When she saw Eagle 9 in the process of pulling the pin off a grenade, she hollered.

"HEY YOU. STOP."

Juri slowly walked past the four, and into the shack. There was only minimal light coming from the torch outside, and the swaying flames made the light unstable, but she could see a large clay pot on top of a thick square wood; The closer she approached it, the louder the cries sounded to her. Curious, she lifted the clay pot aside and kicked the square wood away, only to find a six-foot deep hole, with 3 boys and 2 girls who all could not be older than 4 years old, crying in the dark. Three of them were hugging each other and all their faces were covered in dirt. Juri's heart skipped a beat.

"Viper here. Eagle 6, where are you now, over."

"Eagle 6 here, over." He came closer to the hole and knelt down to look into the hole. He pressed a switch around his mask to turn on night vision, and confirm his findings. "We found 5 children in a deep hole in a shack. Proceeding to eliminate them, over."

Right when he was beginning to aim his M4, Juri's legs hit his hands and rifle so hard that he lost grip and the rifle flew through the roof. He collapsed on the floor, startled.

"...Spare them." Juri's voice was faint, almost unsure. Eagle 6 only looked up to her.

"But our orders are to kill everyone."

"Hold your fire, Eagle 6."

Viper was already standing at the door frame by then. She looked at Juri's back for a while with her hands wrapped under her breasts before going in and observing the children herself.

"Hmm... I guess the intel was not exactly accurate; they do retain some humanity."

Adjusting her gloves, Viper held her hand out in the hole and shot smoke going out from a tube under her arms. After 30 seconds, all five of them became silent and collapse to the ground.

"Eagle 5, take them up and leave them somewhere in the nearby village."

"But... boss... the closest village is like 7 miles away."

"Then you should move now. Take Eagle 6 with you." Viper stood up and adjusted her gloves again. "Leave them somewhere that people can easily notice, ALIVE. Our agents are in those villages to verify that you do it."

"...Understood."

20 minutes later, the whole village was engulfed in flames along with all the bodies. Juri continued to looked at the spot where the shack was, from inside their escape helicopter through the window. Viper, who was sitting across her, only looked on.

"I think I understand why you didn't set out to hit back at Ryu that morning."

Juri still stayed quiet. In her head, a mix of painful memories swirled continuously, and every attempt she made to put them away only served to amplify them.

"Speaking of Ryu, I think I can share a little info on his relationship with Ryu and Shadowlaw, along with your father."

Juri's eyes were then on Viper, although she still did not move.

"Shadowlaw wanted Ryu so they can speed up and complete their development of Psycho Drive using his Dark Hadou. The drugs they needed in the research used to be supplied by this village since the start of Vietnam War, which your father traced down to, 11 years ago. He named them in a testimony during the trial a year later, three months before he died."

"Hmph..."

"Blueprint for the core driver of Psycho Drive's accelerator add-in was also planned and worked on in this village even before they found that they would need Ryu. One of the villagers who had a grudge with Shadowlaw's paycheck botched the delivery and the blueprint ended up torn in half. I found a copy of one half and streamed them directly to Seth, but the other half is said to be in your father's possession."

"...What...!"


	8. 8 - On Being Used

The vanilla white car was speeding slightly above the speed limit through the highway. Driving it was Chun-li, clad in a white loose t-shirt too big for her size, inside her denim jacket, matched with charcoal black jeans. The morning sun was opposite of her face, but her eyes were protected by a pair of oval sunglasses, tied on both ends of its frame with a rubber band. Those eyes were stoicly focused on the road, and both her hands and feet skillfully controlled the manual transmission, clutch, brake and accelerator, as she took over one car after another.

Sitting beside her was Ryu, in his blue washed off jeans with a white t-shirt and a windbreaker jacket. He was only looking outside through the side window, on the trees grown on the side of the road. More than half an hour later, more buildings can be seen, and their sizes bigger as the car approached the city. Gradually, more cars can be seen on the road, and Chun-li slowed down until they came to a stop due to traffic jam ahead.

Earlier that morning, several hours before the sun was even up, Ryu was awaken by the noise of someone talking outside his bedroom. It was not clear enough for him to tell straight away, but then he looked to the side of his bed and see nothing else under his blanket but the robe he gave Chun-li. Lazily, he dragged his two feet off the bed and sat to the site, facing the windows. He could see Chun-li's silhouette from between the cracks.

The conversation must have started long before he woke up, because Chun-li came back in only 20 seconds later. Cold wind passed through her long, freefalling hair as she shut the door, but her naked body was unaffected. When it was fully closed, her hand rested on the handle for a good while, as she stood silently. Ryu's blank stare was then to the floor.

"...My vacation's been cut short." Chun-li spoke first. "Our informants have obtained some details on Juri's recent movements, so I need to get back to HQ soon."

"Is that so..."

He wanted to ask a lot more, but he knew his place. He recognized that they both live in different worlds with different responsibilities and views. The only thing they had in common was the loneliness they experience as a result of it; Chun-li is a police officer whose job is to preserve peace and order, while he used to be a street fighter who devoted his entire life to improve himself in his art, leaving both of them too little time and opportunity for such thing as a relationship. Granted, he was about to put all that behind, but Chun-li does not seem keen on the idea of quitting what she does.

"I need to take you in too, for some Q&A with the boys there. I don't want them to, but I want to stay free from conflict-of-interest issues."

She turned and walked towards him, unmoved. Gently, she wrapped her arms around him, and pushed him down, lying him on the bed. Ryu was a bit startled, but then, she looked at him right in his eyes. Her own pooled with tears.

"Take me...!"

He wished he could ask how she changes her personality so fast, because in the car, she was back to her usual self. Almost every aspect of frankness disappeared from his perception, and her eyes turned sharp, examining, and oftentimes intimidating. Much of the time he spent in the car, he could not decide whether she was really sincere in the two days that she spent at the temple alone with him, or if showing him her frail side would make it easier for her to make him comply in anything she asked. He couldn't snuff the possibility away as far-fetched either; Thousands of lives could be riding on how successful her investigations are. He could not afford to feel used; Bison easily possessed him once, and he could not control Satsui no Hadou despite being a power he was born with. He used to think that he should train himself into controlling it and save her and everyone some trouble, but repeated attempts over that power has proved him in his own eyes to be a weak man. For him, a weak man has no right to feel used.

Yet he asked to be able to see Gunma before the questioning session. He took more than a day spending it with Chun-li, subconsciously trying to run away from the problems he was about to face but in the end, he felt he was still responsible for the old monk. Chun-li agreed to his request, and dropped him at the entrance to the hospital.

"I have things I must attend to, so I'll be on my way first. I'll pick you up again by 11 o'clock here. Just don't wander off." No goodbyes or even so much as a handgesture; just a short order, straight to the point. When the car disappeared from his view at the faraway junction, he decided to go into the hospital. Stepping past the automatically opened door, he could pick out some peculiar figures in between the people he passed through. To the regular civilian, they would not seem all that different, but Ryu could tell from their gestures that they were agents in plain clothes. He could see at least one of them sitting or standing at all the critical locations; the seemingly middle aged man at the waiting hall, the clerk at the admission counter, some nurses by the door to the emergency unit, and the cleaning guy by the elevator. Even the staff at the inquiry station looked at him funny while he asked for direction to the ward where Gunma was. Perhaps Chun-li, or her superiors, agreed to let him visit the old man because they had him under watch anyway - he figured.

He stood still in front of the door into Gunma's room for a while. It was a first class ward room, perhaps courtesy of Ken, or whoever ordered the men in suits inside that room to watch over him, as he could see through the small glass on the door. It was not until one of them opened the door and identified him when he finally went in, but he was still unsure when he saw Gunma, lying in coma on the hospital bed, with a gas mask covering his nose and mouth. After one of the two men in suits talked something over the radio, nothing else was to be heard but the sound of the ECG machine, displaying Gunma's heart beat. Ryu only sat on the chair beside him, unable to think.

He did not know how long he had been there until then, but Ryu snapped back when he heard some commotion outside. He walked towards the door, and opened it halfway to see one of the suits listening to a girl talking opposite of him. She was wearing a white one piece with patches of flower patterns all over it, carrying a plastic bags full of fruits. He recognized the face and the short hair, but he had to look longer because he used to see the girl with a white headband to imitate him.

"Demo watashi ha Ken Masters kara tanomaretandesu yo."

"Warui ga, koko ha kinshi da. Kaettekure."

Ryu came out, and the girl recognized him right away.

"Ne, Ryu-san?"

"...Kanojyo nara daijyoubu. Ken mo kanojyo no koto shinjiru kara yurushitekure."

The man had his doubts, but if it was Ryu who approved her, he felt she was legit. Before he let the girl go in, he asked her full name as part of his protocol.

"Kimi no onamae ha?"

"Kasugano desu. Kasugano Sakura."

Ryu went back to his seat while Sakura ogled at Gunma for a while. Once the man in suit went back in, he took the bag of fruits from Sakura for some inspection, but he did not return it to her.

"He clearly has no use for these fruits now, but we'll keep this for him until he wakes up."

"Thank you."

Sakura slowly sat down on a chair on the opposite site of the bed. She realized that what she was about to ask was probably not something appropriate for the time, but her curiosity could not resist.

"Ken-san told me that you're gonna stop fighting."

"... Pretty much."

"I see..." Sakura could not dare look at his face. "I'm just... surprised... BUT I'm not blaming you or anything. I guess sometimes you just gotta... put down and look elsewhere huh?"

The girl irritated him a little, but he understood that she was only trying to facilitate a conversation.

"Ken-san, he..." It was a long pause, but her speech was no longer stuttered after it. "He was here all day. He sounded really sleepy when he called me."

"...I guess I should've come here earlier."

"I'm sure he won't mind. He told me that someone attacked you, and you needed to calm yourself down." Sakura stared at Gunma's face, but her heart was with Ryu. "He told me to look out for you while he's gone."

"Gone...?"

"He had to go back to the States. Eliza-san had a small complication, and had to be admitted to the hospital."

"I see." His guilt over Ken thickened. He started to feel like he was cowering behind his friends, but was also too helpless to change the situation. Sakura stole a glance at his face and could see it in his eyes too. She then thought of changing the conversation.

"Ryu-san, let's take turns and take care of him together! He only has us to take care of him right now, and he's depending on us, right?"

He was going to plunge himself deeper into self-pity, but Sakura's words and mood soothed his mind a bit. If there was anything concrete he can do to make a change, nursing Gunma back to health would be something to start with. Sakura's smile grew wider when she saw Ryu's own.

"Well, then I better get done with Chun-li quickly so I can go take my savings and find a hotel to stay."

"You had to go somewhere?"

"Yeah. Some business at Interpol. She was supposed to pick me up at 11."

"Really...?" She looked at her wristwatch and raised an eyebrow. "Then you better go now. You have five minutes left!"

Sakura waved her hands timidly while Ryu opened the door. Before he took off, he paused by the doorframe.

"...Thanks, Sakura."

"It's alright, Ryu-san!"

Downstairs at the entrance, Ryu could see Chun-li leaning against her car door, looking at her watch by the roadside.

"You're done?"

"...Not really. Once I'm done with the questioning, I intend to get back here. The old man needs someone to look for."

"Let's hurry up then."

Ryu was walking to the other side of the seat and Chun-li was already halfway through opening the door when they both noticed a figure in the crowd. A lot of people were walking on that side of the road and more were walking in and out of the hospital, but that figure was too striking to ignore; a tall tanned woman in black suit and pants, with shirt unbuttoned in the middle. Her distinctive feature was her flaming red long hair, braided and tied from top to bottom. She smiled at the both of them as she took off her lime-green shaded glasses.

The woman walked nonchalantly closer and closer to them, with her arms wrapped below her breasts, emphasizing their size. When she reached within 10 steps of them, Chun-li was going to draw her M1911 handgun concealed by her jacket, but the woman put her own threat first.

"So many people within my reach right now. You want to risk having any of them hurt?"

"Chun-li..."

Her hand was already on the gun's grip, but with Ryu looking at her, she let loose of it.

"I know..." She clinched her fists. Meanwhile, Viper's eyes were on Ryu, and it did not escape Chun-li's notice.

"I thought you don't always carry firearms, Chun-li? Why the change of mind?"

"When criminals started wearing high-heels that can make them fly, I'd rather not take chances."

"Smart move." She smirked at Chun-li's response. "OK, I'll cut this short. Give us Ryu or else."

"You know you gotta give a better reasoning than that, Viper."

"Oh? How about that 'else' involving the woman who almost killed you, Chun-li?"

Ryu's heart skipped a beat. A deep sense of anxiety began to take over his mind as he saw it; a faint sparkle of bright pink-purple light on one of the buildings inside the hospital compound. He could see it coming from outside the windows of one of the rooms, and judging from the floor position and where it was located, it was obvious that it came from inside Gunma's room.

He knew then that Juri is back, and both Gunma's and Sakura's life might be in danger.


End file.
